America, beware the bogeyman of Canadian-style health care.

O.K. we - Canada - are getting way too much attention in the USA these days. I am getting nervous, you really don't want to piss these guys off!

With U.S. President Barack Obama in the midst of an intense political fight to pass comprehensive health-care legislation this year, U.S. opponents have returned to a familiar argument in efforts to derail the plan — warning Americans that all roads lead to a dysfunctional, Canadian-style, single-payer health system.

I watched an ad against health care reform in the U.S. showing Canadian Shona Holmes staring straight into the camera and telling the audience a brain tumor would have killed her had she relied on her government-run health plan, which would have provided treatment far too late. "Now, Washington wants to bring Canadian-style health care to the U.S.," a narrator says darkly.

Someone check her Social Insurance card - if she actually is Canadian - then she is guilty of treason and better start packing!

In congressional testimony, in television advertising campaigns, and on cable news talk shows, critics this week answered Obama's call for a public health insurance option with dire predictions Americans would soon face long wait times, rationing of care and poor-quality treatment that they say is common north of the border.

The increased use of Canada's health system as a political tactic in the U.S. debate followed Obama's decision this week to ramp up his personal involvement in pushing the health-care issue.

One Republican senator has even taken to attacking the Canadian system by citing a decision two years ago by former Liberal cabinet minister Belinda Stronach to seek breast cancer treatment in the United States.

"Like under the old Soviet system, everything is free and nothing is readily available," David Gratzer, a senior fellow with the conservative Manhattan Institute, said in describing Canadian health care in testimony this week to U.S. lawmakers.


Gratzer, a Manitoba-born doctor and outspoken opponent of Canada's system, counselled Congress against the "temptation" of embracing government-funded universal health care."Canadians wait for practically any diagnostic test or specialist consult procedure, and some of them opt out of the system by crossing the (U.S.) border."

"When she got cancer, what did she do? She came to the United States for her care. That's what Canadians do," Barrasso said in one interview. In another, he said the MP came to the U.S. "because we do a better job with prevention, we do a better job with early detection."

What??????

Stronach, a former human resources minister who battled breast cancer in 2007, has also been unwillingly caught up in the debate. A source close to Stronach said Barrasso had his facts wrong. Stronach chose to have a highly-specialized type of reconstructive surgery at a California facility during a latter stage of her treatment. The treatment had nothing to do with early prevention or detection, nor her faith in the Canadian health system, the source said. Her cancer WAS treated in Canada.

Me thinks this guy has been partaking some our medicinal "Ganja", if he thinks that we would travel to the U.S. for early detection.

Obviously he has not heard of the development of the "Lab on A Chip" developed by Canadian Cancer researchers, which allows for patients to be able to walk into their doctor's office, give a few drops of blood and get a diagnosis within minutes. These quick test results not only gain precious time for patient treatment, but also offer significant savings, as testing can be done at a fraction of the cost of current methods.

This advanced diagnostic development has now become a world wide protocol. We have people from all over the globe traveling HERE for cancer treatment.

In his televised interviews, the Republican senator called Canada's health care a "trick-or-treat system, and that's because it's about Halloween time when they run out of money to do things like artificial hips and artificial knees." O.K. now that's just plain RUDE!!

Ironically, Obama has also faced criticism from activists on the political left who favour the wholesale adoption of a single-payer system but complain the White House, and congressional Democrats have essentially shut them out of the debate. And Canada has its defenders in Congress.

Representative Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat and perennial presidential candidate, got into a heated debate with Gratzer — the Canadian health-care critic — during a House committee hearing this week on health reform.

"Do you know what Statistics Canada says the median wait time is across Canada for elective surgery?" Kucinich demanded of Gratzer.

"Why don't you inform us, sir?" Gratzer replied. "It's four weeks. And what does Statistics Canada say the median wait time for diagnostic imaging like MRIs is? It's three weeks," Kucinich continued."How many uninsured are there in Canada?""Probably relatively few," Gratzer said. "That's right, none or very few," said Kucinich.

Even federal Industry Minister Tony Clement, who previously held the health portfolio, felt compelled to defend Canada's health-care system at a recent business forum in Washington.

"Not a single person who is unemployed has lost the ability to access health care" during the economic recession, Clement said.

Then he recounted a long-ago appearance at a U.S. health conference when someone told him Canada's system is the bogeyman for Americans.

"And as it turns out," Clement said, "the bogeyman for Canadians when it comes to health care is the United States."

By the way Belinda Stronach would have looked ALOT better on camera.


Til later

Footnote: since the publishing of this post the media & public reaction to Ms. Holmes has been brutal - in her defense I must say that she took action at the time of her illness which best suited her situation - and I am grateful that she was treated and survived what was obviously a very serious medical situation. - Fundywriter